A labor of love whose flame of passion is in need of rekindling. A battle against wind, snow, and the elements, that only yields the bittersweet reward of staving off the guilt for another day. Having a gnawing desire to create something beautiful and profound, yet finding yourself lacking a key material.

For me, today, writing feels more and more like im trying to force ideas out of my head, and when I write like that it feels much more fake to me, than when I used to be able to spontaneously come up with something and let it pretty much write itself as I type.I think I owe this to mounting real life pressures: I have my first child coming in just a couple weeks - could be any day now. I feel drained and when I get to sit down in front of the computer I am exhausted and rather than actively write, I find myself mindlessly staring at the screen, occasionally writing a few sentences. I then get sick of it and decide to read some subs, but because im tired i find myself reading it halfway through, then having to re-read to comprehend what im reading. So for the amount of time I spend at this site, very little gets done.

In spite of all this, I am reluctant to give up on the site once again: I think its a wonderful place and I think the people that are a part of it are fantastic - even if some of them are absent sometimes.So I continue in my cycle, waiting for the day when something just clicks for me, and I become active once more.

Also, Scras: I enjoy reading your things. You have a good consistency with quality work and plenty of information.Sci fi is really not something I often get interested in, however, and I don't often post in some of the cosmic era subs because sometimes I don't quite get the setting and the 'technobabble' is lost on me. I feel that my comments and votes wouldn't make sense so i feel its better i don't comment.

Writing is work. It requires as much energy and effort as other, more traditional, crafts do. Some days it is quick, easy work and others . . . other days it's hard to get a hundred words onto the page, much less a full submission or scene. In the end, just remember that the things which are taking you FOREVER to write -- the subs that make your eyes bleed and your brain hurt as you try to force the words out -- are not going to look that different to your audience; they won't be able to distinguish between the stuff that was easy and the stuff that was hard.

Just keep writing, and the easy days will come again. And in the meantime, maybe give yourselves a break and write something completely different, or something that can be done in little chunks (like a 30s list, or a short story). That may be all your brain needs to recharge.

Just keep writing.

P.S. Congrats on the new member of your family, Shadow! Kids suck away a lot of time, but are worth every minute. And Scras -- your work is excellent, but it's hard to keep up with everything you write! I doubt I'll ever be able to comment on all of your subs, not if I made it my personal mission to do so.

I think I owe this to mounting real life pressures: I have my first child coming in just a couple weeks - could be any day now.

Since that was four months ago, I'm going to assume your spawn has made it into the world. Congrats and best of luck to you. My own spawn is edging up on teenagehood... not that that terrifies me or anything.

I think I owe this to mounting real life pressures: I have my first child coming in just a couple weeks - could be any day now.

Since that was four months ago, I'm going to assume your spawn has made it into the world. Congrats and best of luck to you. My own spawn is edging up on teenagehood... not that that terrifies me or anything.

Indeed, It lives and breathes. It causes sleep deprivation and raised tempers. It chews on time and makes playthings of my energy and motivation.It eats ravenously, day and night, and then regurgitates its food onto me. It soils itself with reckless abandon and demands that I clean it. It devours my funds like candy, and when it is not one hundred percent content it wails its deathly cry to the high heavens for all the neighborhood to hear!

There is stuff I should be writing, there are difficult writing challenges I could undertake, but for the last month I have been slipping away from other responsibilities to write things that will only be meaningful to me.

On the cusp of a dreadfully busy weekend (co-hosting a Horse show saturday, and providing room for 3 guests over said weekend) sitting down with a glass of bourbon and a few quiet hours on the Citadel, writing, feels like spending time with a pretty girl. She's pretty, and she likes me, but I won't see her after this for a little bit, and while we might hold hands and flirt at the table over dinner, she won't be coming home with me tonight.

I was working at our horse show this weekend, and I was talking to one of my non-hobby friends and he is very familiar with my writing and likewise I am very familiar with his hobby, which happens to be rebuilding old generators (30s-60s, old iron) and collecting Cub Cadet tractors from the same period and older.

He was discussing how he had no spare time, between his job, working on his generators, and tractors, and doing repair work on his house. For a moment I was in full sympathy, as I frequently find myself in the same situation, with the job, taking care of the horses, cooking and cleaning, and my large assortment of writing projects. Then something hit me.

It doesn't matter.

The generators he fixes get set aside, and the same with the tractors, until they sit long along that they need to be taken apart, and cleaned and rebuilt because they've sat unused, because he's moved on to the next 'vital' project. In doing so he is chasing his own proverbial tail chasing after tasks that need to be done, but really don't, because there is no endgame. It would be different if at the end of the project, the end of the restoration, the generator was sold, or the tractor was sold, or it was put to a specific task, aka I need to fix this heavy tractor because I need it to plow/pull down trees/breath flame at the tractor pull, but it isn't.

In many ways my writing has been the same, an endless circle of projects, various things sitting in work, various settings I've had in work, Epoa, Imbria, the Cosmic Era, the World of Darkness, and the reflexive fantasy genre. The writing projects stack up, and some are finished, but at the end of the writing, at the end, as I am looking at the next project coming up, or looking back at an old piece to pull out of dust off, I haven't accomplished anything. There isn't an achieved endgame.

Nothing has been published.

But here is the thing, I don't feel defeated, I don't feel demoralized or depressed.

I feel like my eyes are open.

I am going to take a little time, step back from the projects I am working on, and reassessing my specific goals.

I was working at our horse show this weekend, and I was talking to one of my non-hobby friends and he is very familiar with my writing and likewise I am very familiar with his hobby, which happens to be rebuilding old generators (30s-60s, old iron) and collecting Cub Cadet tractors from the same period and older.

He was discussing how he had no spare time, between his job, working on his generators, and tractors, and doing repair work on his house. For a moment I was in full sympathy, as I frequently find myself in the same situation, with the job, taking care of the horses, cooking and cleaning, and my large assortment of writing projects. Then something hit me.

It doesn't matter.

The generators he fixes get set aside, and the same with the tractors, until they sit long along that they need to be taken apart, and cleaned and rebuilt because they've sat unused, because he's moved on to the next 'vital' project. In doing so he is chasing his own proverbial tail chasing after tasks that need to be done, but really don't, because there is no endgame. It would be different if at the end of the project, the end of the restoration, the generator was sold, or the tractor was sold, or it was put to a specific task, aka I need to fix this heavy tractor because I need it to plow/pull down trees/breath flame at the tractor pull, but it isn't.

In many ways my writing has been the same, an endless circle of projects, various things sitting in work, various settings I've had in work, Epoa, Imbria, the Cosmic Era, the World of Darkness, and the reflexive fantasy genre. The writing projects stack up, and some are finished, but at the end of the writing, at the end, as I am looking at the next project coming up, or looking back at an old piece to pull out of dust off, I haven't accomplished anything. There isn't an achieved endgame.

Nothing has been published.

But here is the thing, I don't feel defeated, I don't feel demoralized or depressed.

I feel like my eyes are open.

I am going to take a little time, step back from the projects I am working on, and reassessing my specific goals.

Plus, being ill for no discernable or logical reason kills off whatever grey matter was working....

This is when you must write, even if you end up throwing things away. It's all about going full speed ahead against that bastard who lives in all our heads and tells us writing well is out of our collective grasp.